"High-tech is the #1 buzz in the area," says Mike Walden, president
and CEO of OnCampusRecruiter.com.
For the 1999 start-up, life is great. Headquartered in Alexandria, Va.,
the company performs college recruiting for D.C. area high-tech firms,
focusing on small and mid-sized companies.

"This is the place to be," Walden says. "The Internet started around
here and it's here that the first generation of MCIers and people at AOL
made their money. Now [those people] are doing start-ups. Much of the
high-tech growth in this area is Internet- and telecom-based.

"There are many more jobs than qualified people," he says. We have
companies all the way from start-ups to the established giants. " Here
everything moves fast. "It's like drinking from a fire hose. You can
drink as much as you can handle."

Drawn by the challenge, Alan G. Merten came to Northern Virginia in
1997. A computer scientist with experience as a business school dean, he
finds his position as president of George Mason University in Fairfax
puts his technical, business and academic talents to use. "There are
five to ten centers of high-tech concentration, depending on how you
view them," he says. "And each has a different character. In the
Greater Washington/Virginia area, it started with a rush of consulting
companies and system integrators to D.C. in the 1980s. This created a
technological base, which has been applied to the private sector. It is
estimated that over 50% of all Internet business passes through the hubs
of Northern Virginia."

He sees the highest demand for computer and information technology
skills, encouraging all students to be alert to the fact that they need
these skills. "Everybody is in the information technology business now,"
he says, "so a civil engineer needs to understand there are
information-based skills needed to do the job. In aerospace, the demand
is there if you have the information-based skills."

Merten calls bioengineering a power area in Northern Virginia. "But
here also, information technology is important," he says.
"Bioinformatics, combining bio- and info science by using technology to
analyze technical information, is booming. Some think it may be the next
big wave, so people in biology and bioengineering need to look at the
skills needed."

"We have ten jobs for every one person we see," says David Hayes,
president of HireMinds LLC,
a Cambridge, Mass. company that specializes in staffing Internet firms
and companies that build dot coms.

"Cambridge is the true Silicon Valley Eastthe real e-commence
center," he claims. In the Cambridge/Boston area, students will find
many leading e-commerce software vendors and consulting firms. "It's the
hottest up-and-coming e-commerce area in the country."

Hayes sees powerful advantages for the region, including MIT and
Harvard, as well as a diversity of high-tech opportunities. "There is a
buzz here that you don't find in Atlanta. ...I've been in staffing for
seven years," he says. "But I've never seen salaries grow like this
before."

Leslie Smith, executive director of the
Massachusetts Interactive
Media Council, agrees. She cites the state's long history of technological
development from the telephone era to today's Internet. "Lotus and Lycos are headquartered
here," she adds. "There are more than 300 Internet companies in the
state."

"Hiring in the high-tech space in Boston is certainly on the
incline," says Collin Earnst, corporate marketing manager at
iXL's Cambridge offices.
"Growth is not only from the dot coms but also stems from the venture
capital companies in Boston who work with larger organizations."

"Boston has a strong Internet space, biotech space and electrical
engineering," he adds. "There's not so much activity for mechanical and
aerospace engineering now. For electrical engineers, [however,] there
are the electronic component manufacturers."

"You have to be extremely bold to be heard," says Tom Noonan. "If
you are conservative or play by the rules, the game's over."

Not many call Noonan timid. When he risked everything on an
Atlanta-based start-up in 1995, he showed a strong tolerance for risk.
Now president and CEO of Internet
Security Systems, Noonan forges ahead. In
second quarter 1999, ISS reported revenues of nearly $17 million, up
131% from the same quarter last year.

Active in Atlanta's bid to become a dominant high-tech center, Noonan
deals with realities. "It takes three things to create a high-technology
nucleus," he says: (1) availability of high-quality technical
personnel; (2) access to capital; and (3) supporting infrastructure
(companies providing accounting, legal, marketing and other services to
high-tech firms).

"Atlanta is a service industry focused town," says iXL Director of
Staffing Programs Felicia Oglesby, speaking about the city where the
company is headquartered. "And from my perspective there is a 50%
increase in the need for computer science majors. While this may spill
off into other areas, you won't see that high a percentage of growth in
the need for other areas of engineering."

Atlanta's growth gets fuel from the Industries of the Mind
initiative, sponsored by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. "It's a
nationwide campaign to tell Atlanta's story," says C of C President Sam
A. Williams. "We think success in the future is dependent on talent, on
intellectual capital. People with engineering and technical training are
in high demand, especially in the areas of telecom, software and to some
degree, biotech. We want them to come to Atlanta."

A quick look at the Industries of the Mind stat sheet shows Atlanta's
strengths: Metro Atlanta is home to more than 9,000 technology companies
which employ over 165,000 workers. This company base, growing at the rate
of 12% a year, is a major reason that Atlanta is projected to be the
fastest growing job market until the year 2020.

Atlanta also leads the nation with more Internet sites per person
than any other city. Additionally, pointing to the relatively low cost
of living, Williams explains that you can buy a house in Atlanta for a
fraction of what you would pay in Silicon Valley. "The quality of life
is superior and Atlanta offers career ladders, not just within a company
but across companies. There are large established companies and for
those who are more risk-tolerant there are red-hot companies starting
out of Georgia Tech, Emory and Morehouse universities."

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry,
businesses there will create almost 10,000 computer-related jobs a year
through 2005, yet fewer than 1,500 graduates in computer and
information sciences will be available to fill those positions. Governor
Tom Ridge's SciTech Scholars Program has been announced as a key
initiative to reverse this high-tech "brain drain" that the
administration says threatens Pennsylvania's "development as an
environment for technology-intensive business." The program is designed
to reverse the slide by providing scholarships of up to $3,000 a year to
full-time Pennsylvania students earning a bachelor's degree in selected
fields of science and technology. For their part, companies such as the
Unisys Corp. in Blue Bell, Pa., will offer internships to scholarship
recipients and job opportunities to high-tech graduates.

"There just aren't enough high-tech workers to go around," asserts
Dan Guaglianone, corporate director of university relations and
recruiting at Unisys. "Whether you're in Pennsylvania or California,
there isn't a market that has a large number of graduates to pick from."
Guaglianone says that compared to the lure of Silicon Valley, Boston's
high-tech corridor or the activity around Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania
hasn't previously been able to hold its own.

He attributes the lack of student interest to the fact that much of
the state's business is not consumer product-oriented, leaving company
names that are familiar on the stock pages, but not on store shelves.
"If you're a Microsoft, everybody knows who you are. Even Cisco [Systems
Inc.] has had a huge market success and people recognize the name. There
are a lot of high-tech organizations in Pennsylvania, but they're not as
well known."

Though he applauds the governor's efforts, Guaglianone says the
majority of the responsibility falls on companies to demonstrate what
they offer as employers. At Unisys, for example, where one of the
biggest needs is for software and hardware engineers, casual dress,
workday flexibility and conveniences such as on-site dry cleaning are
available. Graduates, he says, are keen on quality of life issues:
"Students want job opportunities, but there are lots of other things on
their list of considerations, as well."

Detroit is best known for its connection with the automobile
industry, and while automotive giants such as General Motors and Ford
are still power players in the area, non-automotive and smaller
businesses are offering opportunities for engineers and computer
scientists in a variety of fields.

The range of tech opportunities is exemplified by
FANUC Robotics,
a leading automation intelligence company based in Rochester Hills,
Mich. FANUC, which stemmed from an automotive venture, was recently
named one of the best places to work in Michigan by Crain's Detroit
Business. The company designs, engineers and manufactures robots and
robotic systems used in manufacturing and on assembly lines.

Rod Coffey, director of the company's HR Group says that unemployment
is very low in the Detroit area, which makes finding talent "a
challenging process for all of us." Some of the demand for talented
technical students is being met by graduates of local universities such
as Wayne State, the University of Detroit and the University of
Michigan, but Coffey says there is still a need for computer, electrical
and mechanical engineers.

While companies like FANUC retain ties with the automotive industry,
Coffey points out that "on a given day, the automobile industry only
accounts for about half of our business. We do a lot of business in
non-automotive areas such as electronics, food handling, glass handling
and pharmaceuticals, and we're doing a lot of work with the U. S. Postal
Service, plastics and printing companies."

Other companies in the Midwest, like Plano, Texas-based
Electronic Data Systems,
have concentrated business areas throughout the country due to a
relationship with a specific client. In Michigan, EDS works closely with
GM and employs computer scientists and engineers who work on various
aspects of vehicle electronics, software, communications and mechanics.
EDS Vice President Doug Hoover explains that in the coming year the
company is looking to hire more than 100 "applied engineering" workers
in electrical, mechanical and industrial controls. "About 40% of those
will be in the embedded technology area, about 40% in the manufacturing
engineering plant floor area and about 20% on the product engineering
side. " He also notes that the company hires a number of computer
scientists into its development program.

With 7.7 million people calling its metropolitan area home, Chicago
is for those who like the "big city." The third largest city in the
United States, it is also a major business center, with 35 Fortune 500
company headquarters. Industries range from insurance and banking to
technology and telecommunications, with giants like Motorola, Ameritech
and Abbott Laboratories coloring the corporate landscape.

Smaller companies and start-ups also play an important role in
Chicago's business environment with e-commerce companies like
Peapod Inc., a
Web-based grocer based in Skokie, Ill., undergoing rapid growth. Laura
Abrahams, director of human resources at Peapod, says that "three or
four years ago we were looking for people with three or four years of
experience. ...But we're really at a different place now and we do
look at people right out of school."

She adds that experience is essential, encouraging students to do
internships and get "any type of training that relates to e-commerce
development, especially anything with Java, HTML or C++, because we look
for computer science people who have done programming."

Citing the fast pace of e-commerce and the rapid growth of the
industry, Abrahams says e-commerce offers "a ton of opportunities" for
interested engineers and computer scientists. She also notes that "the
number [of e-commerce companies] in Chicago has grown tremendously in
the last five years."

Minnesota has garnered a lot of attention recently, most of it based
on the election of pro-wrestler-turned-Governor Jesse Ventura, but the
"Star of the North" offers a lot more than colorful politicians.
Following an economic downturn in the mid 1980s, and losing thousands of
residents who relocated to the Twin Cities, the Duluth area is
rebuilding with an eye on technology.

Duluth is home to Cirrus Design, the Northwest Airlines Maintenance
Facility, Schott Power Systems, Norstar Products International, and the
city's SoftCenter Duluth project, which promises to bring even more
companies into the economic fold. A franchise of a business design from
Sweden, the SoftCenter brings together universities and corporations,
allowing students to gain experience and employers to create a talent
pool.

Michael McNamara, president of SoftCenter
Duluth says that the center is primarily looking for software engineers
and programmers, "but we're looking at anybody within the computer or
technology field that would like to live in Duluth." He also notes that
the SoftCenter facility is "probably wired as well as any building in
the country. We believe it's got the broadest bandwidth of anything
that's being built in the world right now."

For now, the SoftCenter is soliciting resumes through its Web site
and offering them to companies as they sign on to join the program.
Currently working with about 50 companies, McNamara says that the goal
of the project is to create 1,000 jobs within a 10-year period,
following the lead of its Swedish counterpart.

Despite the city's reputation as one of the world's biggest party
spots, New Orleans is also home to a number of small tech companies. The
development and growth of such companies is being aided and observed by
the New Orleans Tech Council, an industry-driven trade association.

Among the rapidly growing companies in the area is
Turbotrip.com, a
worldwide reservations service based in the Big Easy. Originally called
Room Finders USA and servicing only the New Orleans area, the company
first hit the Web in 1996, and now serves 55 countries and 367 cities
worldwide, according to Executive Vice President Darin McAuliffe. While
the company is small, currently employing 32 people, its need for code
writers, programmers, network engineers and those familiar with Oracle
exemplifies the needs of e-commerce and Web-based businesses.

Larger companies in the New Orleans area include BellSouth, Entergy
Corp. and Shell Oil Co. Petroleum is a big business in Louisiana with
giants like Chevron, Exxon, Mobil and Marathon employing thousands in
the New Orleans area alone.

"Texas as a state is really rising quickly in technology," says Rob
Donnelly, director of the Houston
Technology Center, an organization providing businesses with professional
services, venture capital and networking and educational opportunities. And while
Austin and Dallas are now widely known for software and telecommunications, respectively,
Houston's high-tech environment is just as rich, if a bit more varied.

In addition to NASA's Johnson Space Center and energy, construction
and engineering firm Halliburton Co., Houston has "a lot of life
sciences and biotech, and we're the energy capital of the world, so
there are energy and petroleum positions. But there's been a surge in
I.T. with Compaq and BMC software and a number of smaller software
companies. There's an overall demand for a very broad range of technical
people," says Donnelly.

He adds that "some of our statistics have found that Houston has the
same gross number of I.T.-related positions as Austin." The HTC also
reports that there are more than 390 emerging software and e-commerce
companies in the area.

Figuratively (and to some extent, literally), San Jose, Calif. , has
become the center of the U. S. high-tech industry, serving as home to
such companies as Cisco Systems Inc. and Cadence
Design Systems Inc. Neighboring communities have also bloomed economically, thanks
to firms such as Apple Computer in Cupertino, Hewlett-Packard Co. in
Palo Alto, Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, and Netscape Communications in
Mountain View. Perhaps now, more than at any time in the past, jobs for
entry-level professionals abound in the Valley.

"We're coming out of a period in which there was some uncertainty
for new college graduates," admits Thad Salter, university relations
and recruiting manager for Cadence. "Traditionally, we had looked for
the person with eight or more years of experience but ... that pool is
diminishing quickly. Now, there's a push to utilize new college
graduates."

According to Salter, the frequency in which experienced workers
switch jobs has helped increase the demand for new college graduates.
"People are moving so much from company to company," he explains, "that
more companies are using college graduates. The companies that have
always been proactive [in college recruiting], like Cadence, Intel and
IBM, now are competing with even more people vying for those talented
folks."

Cadence's strategy has been to build relationships with selected
universities, both in and outside California. Among the schools that the
firm targets are Stanford, San Jose State, the University of California
at Berkeley and California Polytechnic Institute. Most of Cadence's new
hires, however, come from outside the state, Salter says. He believes
students from all over the country continue to be drawn to Silicon
Valley because "most of them know that this is the mecca of technology
and they want to be to be able to work on the cutting-edge technologies."

Technology grads know Seattle as the home of Microsoft (in nearby
Redmond), aerospace giant The Boeing Co., and smaller firms like the
growing Starwave Corp. in Bellevue. The
Greater Redmond Chamber of Commerce also includes Nintendo of America; Eddie Bauer,
the clothing and outdoor retailer; and seven of the top 16 biomedical
companies in the Puget Sound region who call Redmond home, such as
Spacelabs Medical and Medtronic Physio-Control Corp. In addition,
Redmond hosts the unit of AlliedSignal Avionics that makes the fabled
"black boxes" that record data on airliner flights, and a unit of Primex
Aerospace that makes tiny rockets to help control exploratory flights
into outer space.

Further down the coast, San Diego is quietly emerging as a
technological powerhouse, with telecom developer QUALCOMM among the
corporations calling the city home. According to the city's
Chamber of
Commerce, the city's gross regional product is forecast to reach
$91.6 billion in 1999, and further grow to $96.6 billion in 2000.

What's behind that growth? A regional report in September 1998 found
that San Diego's defense industry generates $9.5 billion within the
local economy, so it's not surprising that the city is home to the
highest concentration of military personnel in the United States. The
Chamber notes that approximately 22% (275,000 jobs) of the region's
total employment base may be traced to defense, although this left the
region vulnerable when the federal government axed parts of its defense
budget in the 1990s. Far from a one-horse town, however, San Diego has
strongly recovered from past cuts and is building a solid base from
other pursuits.

The Chamber reports: "In the years following the first declines in
defense-related income, some industries in San Diego have remained
stable with steady growth, while others, such as high technology and
medical technology, have come onto the forefront as major areas of
potential economic growth. San Diego is beginning to be seen as an area
for emerging technologies, and while aerospace jobs do not have
the[same] impact on San Diego they did in past years, advances and
growth in other technology areas, including biomedical, computers and
more means there actually is a shortage of highly trained workers needed
for high technology jobs."

The greater Phoenix area is riding a modern wave, driven both by
increased job opportunities (it is third in the nation in employment
growth) and continued population expansion (second in the United
States). The greater Phoenix metro region added 95,000 new jobs in 1998,
many of which were filled by its relatively young residents--who average
34.4 years of age. These factors have propelled the Phoenix area to18th
place in high-tech employment, as ranked by the American Electronics
Association, and 20th in average high-tech wage levels, two factors that
led ComputerJobs.com, an online recruiting service for I.T.
professionals in 19 selected regions of the country, to launch a site
focusing on the city last May. "We keep an eye on the top technology
markets," explains the site's Vice President of Corporate Development
Joyce Needham, "and Phoenix was one of our top 20."

Much of Phoenix's growth mirrors that of the state at large. The
Arizona Department of Commerce reports that manufacturing has become a
key component in the state's economic equation. Motorola, Honeywell,
Boeing, Allied Signal and Intel all have major operations located in
Arizona. "And each of these companies brings with them a large supplier
base," cites a report from the department.

Needham adds start-up companies within the I.T. industry to the list
of promising employers for graduating engineers and computer
professionals, many of them Internet-related. Within more established
firms, resources are also being directed toward doing business on the
Web. "A lot of money is going to Internet-related investments within
software and communications firms," she says. Among those companies,
Needham notes that knowledge of e-commerce and ERP, networking, and
Windows development skills are most in demand.

All this activity has prompted booms in other sectors, too. Civil
engineering students will be happy to know that the increasing demand
for commercial space has spurred the construction trade to flourish.
This market grew from $5.5 billion in 1994 to $11.2 billion in 1998.

Visiting Denver may make you a little short of breathnot
because of the high altitude, but because of the tremendous
opportunities for technical professionals!

According to the Denver
Metro Chamber of Commerce, telecommunications, aerospace, financial services,
computer software and other high-tech sectors anchor Denver's economy. Telecommunications
company U. S. West, aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, financial services
company Merrill Lynch, utility provider New Century Energies, and
software pioneer Sun Microsystems all operate from the Mile-High City.
"These companies have helped Denver in its 11 years of economic growth
since the area's oil- and gas-induced slowdown in the mid-1980s, and
will help Denver grow well into the next century," notes the Chamber.

A perennial addition to many "Top Employers" lists, U. S. West actively
continues to recruit engineering and computer science majors. According
to its Web site, most of the company's opportunities are in its Denver
headquarters and are open to civil, computer, electrical and industrial
engineering undergraduates, as well as computer science students.

The Denver area also hosts one of the country's largest environmental
consulting and engineering firmsCH2M
HILL. The company provides a full range of
integrated services for project development, planning, design,
construction, operations and maintenance of public and private
industrial facilities and infrastructure.

A fair share of software jobs, many of them related to the Internet,
can also be found in and around Denver. According to HyCurve Inc., a
firm that provides Internet skills training, a recent report by a Los
Angeles-based researcher found that approximately 7,000 I.T. jobs are
currently unfilled in Colorado, and that the number could grow to 30,000
over the next decade. A recent report in The Denver Post confirmed the
shortage, noting that in terms of salaries, "Denver appears to be headed
in the direction of the coastal tech centers." It concluded that grads
with bachelor's degrees in computer science or information systems could
expect first-year salaries at about $45,000, with annual increases
averaging 15%.